The race for the East Coast Rugby Conference championship, and its automatic bid to the Sweet 16, now has two front runners in Middlebury and Boston College. Both scored wins on the weekend – Middlebury 91-7 over Albany and Boston College 22-5 over Northeastern.

“We had a great day. We had a great week of practice and the boys just played unbelievable,” said Middlebury coach John Phillips of the one-sided victory over Albany. “We rang the changes in the second half, brought along the subs, but we never changed our style of play. The forwards just dominated and the backs ran wild.”

Senior flyhalf Brian Sirkia accounted for 31 of Middlebury’s 91 points on the day, dotting down one try and slotting two penalties and 10 conversions.

The Boston College win was much closer. The Eagles led the defending East Coast champs 8-0 at halftime, having put in an unconverted try and a penalty. Northeastern scored an unconverted try to open the second half and make it 8-5, but a pair of converted tries undid Northeastern.

“BC played well. They had a great game plan and it just wasn’t our day,” said Northeastern coach Jamie Green.

“They used their pack efficiently. They were able to move attackers on the blind effectively and they were really good at counter attacking off kicks. They scored two tries that were counter attacks off kicks. They executed them well.”

AIC also won on the weekend, beating UMass 32-7 Friday night. The Yellow Jackets are still within reach of a league championship, but they cannot lose again, and they draw Middlebury this coming weekend.

The de facto ECRC championship game, should Middlebury and Boston College remain unbeaten before then, is Nov. 3 at Middlebury.